The species richness of extant metazoan phyla displays a strong association with the ontogenetic timing of germ-line determination. Taxa with early ontogenetic determination of the germ-line are characterized by low species number relative to taxa with late or variable determination. A test for a similar association in fossil taxa is compromised by the fact that all phyla displaying early determination of the germ-line are small, soft-bodied groups which lack a reliable fossil record. To the extent that this correlation reflects causality, patterns of evolutionary diversification have been decidedly non-random. The fact that ontogenetic timing of germ-line determination defines the extent to which genetic variation arising during the course of ontogeny may be inherited suggests a possible causal foundation for the pattern.

The species-level properties of geographic range and geologic duration are often used as variables in evolutionary studies. However, estimates of species duration are not independent of estimates of geographic range. Before these properties are used in macroevolutionary hypotheses, error associated with these estimates must be quantified. This error may lead to spurious inferences of evolutionary processes. To assess the error associated with estimates of geographic range and geologic duration, we modeled various sampling regimes and calculated the bias associated with these estimates.

We present three analyses which document the bias associated with estimates of geographic range and geologic duration. First, we find a positive correlation between local abundance and geographic range for a sample of 180 species of Recent prosobranch gastropods from the northeastern temperate Pacific Ocean. Therefore, geographically short-ranging species are less likely to be represented in the fossil record than geographically long-ranging species because of their local rarity. Second, we demonstrate that the chance of underestimating the geographic range of a species is acute for species with restricted spatial distributions, further compounding the problem of documenting their distribution in space and time. Third, we present a simulation which quantifies the degree of autocorrelation between geographic range and geologic duration for different levels of sampling resolution and spatial distributions of fossil localities.

A review of the processes required for exceptional preservation of soft-bodied fossils demonstrates that anoxia does not significantly inhibit decay and emphasizes the importance of early diagenetic mineralization. Early diagenesis is the principal factor amongst the complex processes leading to soft-part preservation. The development of a particular preservational mineral is controlled by rate of burial, amount of organic detritus, and salinity. A new causative classification of soft-bodied fossil biotas is presented based upon fossil mineralogy and mineral paragenesis.

Substantial geographic coverage in paleontological study is essential in testing evolutionary models of phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. We present a multivariate morphometric study of the late Neogene planktonic foraminiferal clade Globoconella using specimens from four Deep Sea Drilling Project sites (DSDP 284, 207A, 208, and 588) along a latitudinal traverse in the southwest Pacific.

During the Late Miocene (7 Ma to 5 Ma), populations of the ancestral species Globorotalia (Globoconella) conomiozea formed a geographic cline showing continuous morphological variation from the temperate sites (DSDP 284 and 207A) to the warm subtropical sites (DSDP 208 and 588). Populations living to the south had higher conical angle and fewer chambers in the final whorl compared to the northern populations. Nevertheless, populations across the entire cline exhibited a coherent, directional trend towards having larger conical angle and fewer chambers through time. At the Miocene/Pliocene boundary, the intensification of the Tasman Front (Subtropical Divergence) possibly isolated the peripheral populations in the warm subtropics from the central stocks of the temperate water masses. The evolutionary trends became decoupled: the central populations gradually lost their keel and transformed into G. (G.) sphericomiozea, while the peripheral populations in the warm subtropical areas retained their keel and evolved into a flattened species, G. (G.) pliozea.

The gradual transformation of G. (G.) conomiozea terminalis (a form retaining a keel) into G. (G.) sphericomiozea (a form lacking a keel) occurred during an interval of about 0.2 m.y., with all measured morphologic variables showing continuous and steady changes. The evolution of the central populations follows the model of phyletic gradualism. In peripheral populations, the origin of the descendant species G. (G.) pliozea from the ancestor G. (G.) conomiozea terminalis occurred very rapidly within an interval of less than 0.01 m.y. The population size of G. (G.) pliozea was small at the incipient stage at about 5.05 Ma, but increased rapidly to become dominant during the next 0.2 m.y. when the ancestral species G. (G.) conomiozea terminalis became locally extinct. Following speciation, G. (G.) pliozea exhibited morphological stasis for about 0.6 m.y., until the central stock form G. (G.) puncticulata migrated back to the warm subtropics; during the next 0.5 m.y. of their sympatry, there is no sign of hybridization between these two sister species. The evolution of G. (G.) pliozea follows the model of punctuated equilibrium.

The evolution of the Globoconella clade shows both phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. These two “alternative” evolutionary models complement each other rather than being mutually exclusive. Both models are indispensable towards providing a complete picture of the evolution of Globoconella.

The global diversification of the class Bivalvia has historically received two conflicting interpretations. One is that a major upturn in diversification was associated with, and a consequence of, the Late Permian mass extinction. The other is that mass extinctions have had little influence and that bivalves have experienced slow but nearly steady exponential diversification through most of their history, unaffected by interactions with other clades. We find that the most likely explanation lies between these two interpretations. Through most of the Phanerozoic, the diversity of bivalves did indeed exhibit slow growth, which was not substantially altered by mass extinctions. However, the presence of “hyperexponential bursts” in diversification during the initial Ordovician radiation and following the Late Permian and Late Cretaceous mass extinctions suggests a more complex history in which a higher characteristic diversification rate was dampened through most of the Phanerozoic. The observed pattern can be accounted for with a two-phase coupled (i.e., interactive) logistic model, where one phase is treated as the “bivalves” and the other phase is treated as a hypothetical group of clades with which the “bivalves” might have interacted. Results of this analysis suggest that interactions with other taxa have substantially affected bivalve global diversity through the Phanerozoic.

George Gaylord Simpson was one of the first paleontologists to apply survivorship analysis to the study of fossil taxa. His finding that the survivorship curve for extant bivalve genera plotted above that for extinct genera led him to conclude that bivalve genera are drawn from at least two distinct distributions of longevities, and formed the fundamental basis for his influential concepts of horotelic and bradytelic evolutionary rates. Survivorship curves presented in this paper show the same pattern of disjunct survivorship in genera from the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology and in families from Sepkoski's compendium.

Some of the observed differences between survivorship curves are artificial, occurring because long-lived genera and families are more likely to survive to the Recent than short-lived genera and families. The living fauna thus contains a disproportionate number of long-lived genera and families, and the survivorship curve for the living fauna is expected to lie above that for the extinct fauna for this reason alone—even if all longevities are drawn from the same distribution. Recognition of this bias led Raup (1975) to question the significance of the survivorship patterns presented by Van Valen (1973), and Stanley's (1984) acceptance of Raup's argument led him to dismiss the survivorship pattern discovered by Simpson. But statistical analysis using bootstrapping shows that this bias accounts for only a small proportion of the difference between survivorship curves. Other biases considered, such as “pull of the Recent,” “asymmetrical range truncation,” and erroneous concatenation of stratigraphic ranges, do not account for the pattern either. Although still other biases, as yet unknown, cannot definitively be ruled out, it appears that the longevities of extinct and living bivalve taxa are meaningfully different, and that the fundamental causes are biological.

The logistic model provides a useful geometric description of coiling for larger Foraminifera. This model represents a spiral in polar coordinates by means of a logistic equation. The model describes the spires of the genera Alveolina, Nummulites, and Assilina very well. The logistic model is a consequence of allometric growth in these genera. The spires of Nummulites do not fit the logarithmic spiral model well, because the model does not accommodate ontogenetic change of form. Computer simulations using the logistic model also show the very different morphologies of the genus Alveolina. The model allows study of geometrical constraints on test form and of pathways followed by the evolution of the genus (or genera). The logistic model describes ontogenetic change in the organism's functional requirements. The main physiological requirements are nourishment, general exchanges of matter and energy with the environment, and light for the photosynthetic symbionts that live in the cytoplasm of these larger Foraminifera. All these functions require suitable area/volume ratios, that mandate changes of form during growth. The possible biological meaning of the parameters of the model is explored. The use of the more meaningful parameters is proposed in statistical multivariate studies.

Recovery of trilobite faunas following a mass extinction during the Upper Cambrian Sunwaptan Stage (equal to the “Ptychaspid Biomere”) involved increases in both within-habitat (alpha) diversity and in levels of biofacies differentiation. This pattern parallels, at a lower hierarchical level, the global increase in Phanerozoic marine invertebrate species richness (Sepkoski et al. 1981), which was influenced by changes in provinciality and in alpha diversity. Diversification slowed markedly in subtidal shelf carbonate habitats in the upper half of the stage, but continued in carbonate shelf margin environments, possibly due to higher rates of immigration from off-shelf sites. Trilobite clades appearing early in the stage have low centers of gravity, reflecting high immigration rates during and shortly after an interval of mass extinction. Expansion of shallow-water carbonate deposition in the upper half of the stage was accompanied by the spread of carbonate bank biofacies. Families occurring in these biofacies gradually increased in species richness and tended to have high centers of gravity.

Plesiadapiforms were among the most diverse and abundant of North American mammalian groups during the Paleocene epoch. Their decline and extinction has been attributed to a variety of causes, including competitive exclusion by rodents and/or by primates of modern aspect (euprimates), and the effects of late Paleocene–early Eocene climatic warming. However, analyses of generic and species richness and relative abundance patterns indicate that the decline of plesiadapiforms was more complex than usually supposed. The two major superfamilies, Plesiadapoidea and Microsyopoidea, exhibited very different patterns of decline. Microsyopoids and paromomyid plesiadapoids do not exhibit a pronounced decline in taxonomic richness and relative abundance during the Early Tertiary. Non-paromomyid plesiadapoids do decline markedly, but, when their taxonomic richness and relative abundance patterns are compared with those of potentially competing taxa (rodents and euprimates) only non-paromomyid plesiadapoids and rodents show the inverse relationship consistent with taxonomic displacement. Euprimates appear in North America after non-paromomyid plesiadapoids were virtually extinct. Analyses of body size, diet, diel activity patterns, and locomotion support the hypothesis that rodents and non-paromomyid plesiadapoids may have competed for the same resources; their paleobiogeographic histories also are consistent with the competition argument.

Currently available paleoclimatological data for the Early Tertiary largely pertain to global temperature trends and are not detailed enough to demonstrate unequivocally whether the decline of non-paromomyid plesiadapoids coincided with climatic change. A more complete record of paleoclimatic indicators, especially from the Western Interior of North America, is needed to test the climate hypothesis adequately. The several independent lines of evidence considered here and elsewhere in reference to other mammalian taxa strongly support the hypothesis that competition with rodents was an important factor in a major restructuring of Early Tertiary mammalian communities in North America.